top of page

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy including Equal Pay (Gender Pay Gap)

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion -Statement of Commitment

​

Caremax 24/7 welcome and celebrate diversity and the strengths this brings to our communities and our workforce. 

As a leading providers of agency care support services, we are committed to providing equality of opportunity and tackling discrimination, harassment, intimidation, and disadvantage. We are also committed to achieving the highest standards in our service delivery, decision-making, and employment practices.

This policy statement is intended to be a short, overarching document which sets the principles and vision for Caremax 24/7. Our vision and principles inform all relevant policies, procedures and standards which provide more detail on specific areas. These include our policies on Modern Slavery and Safeguarding as well as our Service Charter.

We fully understand and accept our obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and the Equal Pay Act as amended in 1984. We work hard to go beyond the spirit of the law however by understanding that although we are exempt from submitting annual reports under the Gender Pay Regulations, our remuneration packages are fully transparent and aim to be free of gender bias or any other discriminatory factor. We fully accept the principles of “like work” and “work of equal value” as defined in the Equal Pay Act.

On a practical day to day basis, we are fully conversant and work well with the following definitions: -

  • Equality is about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents. No one should have poorer life chances because of the way they were born, where they came from, what they believe, or whether they have a disability.

  • Diversity means recognising, valuing, and encouraging the different perspectives and life experiences which individuals bring to a community or organisation.

  • Inclusion means that everyone feels part of a community or organisation and that they are all respected for what they bring to that community or organisation.

​

Meeting our responsibilities

​

As part of meeting our responsibilities, we make the following commitments.

  • We will treat staff, carers, clients and stakeholders with dignity and respect and embrace and celebrate diversity.

  • We will train and develop our staff and carers to help us meet our equality duties and show leadership by being active and visible in delivery of our responsibilities.

  • We will use information and talk to people to identify where inequality exists so that we can plan to tackle it.

  • When it will help us to improve our services and to understand how we are meeting our equality duties, we will ask questions about people’s protected characteristics, including age, race, sex, and disability. We will always make it clear that people do not have to answer these questions and that they will still receive the services they need. We will keep personal data confidential. Our Data Protection and Privacy Policies explain fully how we process personal and sensitive data.

  • We will consider equality issues when we deliver our services. Our service plans will include any major equality actions that we plan to undertake.

  • When we think about changing our services, we will make sure that those making the decision know how the change could affect people with any of the protected characteristics. We will collect information about how people might be affected before deciding. If the change might cause difficulties for people with a protected characteristic, we will do our best to find ways to reduce this impact. If we cannot, then we should think carefully about whether we need to make the change to achieve a legitimate aim.

  • We have a duty to make reasonable changes to the way we do things so that disabled people can use our services and work for us. We recognise that everyone is different, and we will treat people as individuals.

  • We will make sure that anyone who provides a service for us treats people fairly. We will do this through our procurement process and by monitoring their work.

  • We will consider the needs of all clients in the methods we use for communicating with carers, service users, clients, and stakeholders.

  • We will recruit, select, train, and promote staff fairly. We will aim to get the make-up of our staff and carers to match our communities. We will have clear systems for staff and carers to complain if they are treated unfairly.

  • We will challenge discriminatory behaviour towards our staff and our carers.

  • We will also make it easy for clients to complain if something goes wrong and we will respond quickly and efficiently. If legal action is intended or underway; complaints will be suspended until the legal process is resolved.

  • If we find that anyone has broken our equality policy, we will investigate and take disciplinary action if appropriate.

  • We will monitor our equality actions through our usual reporting systems.

  • We will publish information each year to show how we are meeting our equality duties

 

 

July 2024​

bottom of page